John Paul Walter

I am currently writing my dissertation, "Reviving Memoria: English Studies and the Canon of Memory." Starting with recent work on rhetorical memory which argues that memoria has always been much more than rote memorization of speeches for oral delivery and, therefore, made irrelevant by the advent of writing and print, I argue that memoria has been and continues to be central to the practices of rhetoric and hermeneutics (the production and reception of texts), and I demonstrate a number of ways in memoria can be engaged in English Studies.

My research and teaching interests include composition studies and the history and theory of rhetoric; medieval literature and language; memory; orality-literacy studies and the media ecology of oral, manuscript, print, and digital culture; and digital English Studies. What unifies these diverse subjects is my overarching interest in an historicist and comparative analysis of traditions.

I serve on CCCC Committee on Computers in Composition and Communication, the editorial board of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and the advisory board of H-Net's H-DigiRhet Discussion Network , and I am a 2006-2009 MLA Bibliography Fellow.

I maintain two blogs, Machina Memorialis, which is my academic and commonplace blog, and Notes from the Walter J. Ong Archive, which is a commonplace blog for my work with the Walter J. Ong Collection.